Crank calls

A crank call to Carvel led to a career for the Beastie Boys.

More juvenile jackass stuff. Generally just annoying and relatively harmless, but at its worst harrassment to the point of frightening.

Somewhere in my soul continues to live on that immature 12 or 13 year old, because stuff like the "Jerky Boys" or certain episodes of "Jackass" can still crack me up. When I was an adolescent (in years as well as mental outlook), I had a brash, wiseass friend who would make crank calls, and sometimes I'd record them on a little tape recorder I had. He would dial numbers completely at random, and once got an obtuse gentleman who didn't seem to get that he was talking to a snotty little 12-year old. My friend was trying to sound like an Italian immigrant and, despite being actually Italian, ended up sounding like someone from Germany or the Balkans. Friend: "IS KATE DERE?" Gentleman: "There is no one here by that name." Friend: "BUT IT CUNT BE! WHAT'S WRONG WIT DA PHONES HERE IN DIS CUNT-TRY?" Gentleman: "I think if you dial the correct number, you'll get the party you want. What number did you dial?" My friend, unable to remember the number he had initially dialed... Read more

as a teenager way back in the 70s my gal pals and I tried this a few times. nothing horrible just goofy stuff. more annoying than harmful. caller ID makes it much harder to try.not that i am endorsing prank phone calls.

Crank calls range from lame to brilliant. Some of my faves... 1) A guy pretends to be a homicide detective on a murder scene when called by a telemarketer, threatening to bring the telemarketer in for questioning. 2) John Holmberg of 98 KUPD calls a woman as a "pregnant teenage girl" at the request of her boyfriend who listens to the show, claiming said boyfriend is the father of her baby for an April Fools joke. 3) My personal best reverse crank call. This payphone at the college had been getting obscene cranks from some buttholes that liked picking on anyone dumb enough to pick up the payphone. I had heard of them and answered the phone as George W. Bush. I then berated them for calling the red phone at the White House since it was only for emergencies and threatened to "Patriot Act their little asses." They lost composure and started cussing me out.

Maybe at one time this would have been considered a good practical joke, but by today's standards, this one wouldn't work too well, with all the caller IDs and *69, and other similar ways of finding out who had done the calling.